Why 'Makers' Is a Film Every Woman Should See

Forbes Woman
I write about entertainment and the business of television.

Most of us watched the first season of Mad Men and marveled at the rampant sexism experienced by every single woman on the show. Even if we’d encountered our own, more veiled, modern-day conference room ogling or verbal slights (“Morning, sweetie” – not cool, guys), that 1960 Manhattan office felt faraway, even shocking. It’s easy to forget what America was like for our grandmothers and mothers, and to dismiss the notion that things could pretty easily shift backwards, which is why we should all check out the new documentary Makers.

In the early 1970s, my mom was interviewing for secretarial jobs, and the second question everyone asked her after, “How are you?” was: “When do you plan on getting pregnant?” Thankfully today that’s not the norm, but it’s incredible to think that this was just how women were treated. You didn’t call a lawyer or tell the interviewer that it was none of their damn business. You answered, because you were a woman and that’s the way the world worked.

Similar stories populate Makers: The Women Who Make America, a comprehensive and fascinating look at the women’s movement from the 1950s to the present day, narrated by Meryl Streep. Judy Blume talks about getting ridiculed for being a housewife who dared to think she could write a book, and Oprah talks about fighting for equal pay during one of her early television jobs. There are equally compelling stories from women like Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, writer Erica Jong, Ellen DeGeneres, Meg Whitman, Katie Couric, Hillary Clinton, coal miner Barbara Burns, and Gloria Steinem, to name just a few. The documentary was, “one of those extraordinary labors of love that suddenly went on steroids,” says Dyllan McGee, creator and co-producer. “It’s all about timing when projects start with the seed of an idea and slowly get off the ground and then kind of explode.”

McGee started off wanting to make a film about women’s rights pioneer and Ms. Magazine co-founder Steinem, but the answer was no. “She’s the most egoless person you’ll ever meet,” McGee explains. “She said her story was part of a collective of stories.” And so the idea for Makers was born. It started off as an online digital collection of these stories, and the documentary was built from there, with help from AOL, PBS, and Simple.

There’s been some backlash against the idea of being a feminist, with women like Katy Perry and Taylor Swift distancing themselves from the word and fearing that by saying, “Hell yes I’m a feminist” they’ll come across as scowling, bitter, angry women and alienate their rabid fan base. Swift and Perry should get together, pop some popcorn, and watch Makers, and then see how they feel.

“I hope it will change the way history is being taught,” says McGee. “We really want Millennials to connect and to create an inclusive community. We have interviews with everyone from Tavi Gevinson to Ruth Bader Ginsberg. We hope this becomes water-cooler conversation.”

Makers premieres in New York City tonight, and airs on PBS on February 26. “Feminism is a loaded word right now and people associate it with angry women,” says McGee. “I hope this documentary will show why women were out there fighting. There’s still work to be done.”